RV CHAIRMAN STATES RACING VICTORIA'S POINT OF VIEW ON CURRENT IMPASSE

By Graham Potter | Thursday, February 16, 2023

Brian Kruger, the Racing Victoria Chairman, clearly is an optimist.

Most would say that to be involved in the racing game you have to be optimist, because it is a game that will test you almost at every turn whatever your role in the industry, and, arguably, the higher up the food chain you are the greater the stress because decisions you make will affect others.

The latest standoff between Racing Victoria and Racing New South Wales is going to court ... although this time it is not a straight stoush between the two major racing bodies with other racing jurisdictions being named alongside Racing Victoria in legal papers served by Racing New South Wales.

Part of Kruger’s response to Racing New south Wales’s court action has been to look for a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I am hoping that there is a positive or a silver lining that might come out of all of this,” said Kruger, talking on RSN927, as reported by Racing.com.

Critical to any ongoing discussion will be the unravelling of the stalemate, deadlock, dysfunction ... whatever you want to call it ... that currently sums up Racing Australia.

While happy to search for and move toward that beam of light (if and when it appears), Kruger, nevertheless also made his feelings plain in his defence of Racing Victoria’s role in how Racing Australia got into the position in which it currently finds itself.

Kruger’s comments in this regard on RSN927, in part, included:

‘Hopefully we will get a chance to explain fully about what has been happening at the RA table and people will get a sense of where the issues are.

‘AJ (the Racing Victoria CEO Andrew Jones) talked about the fact that Racing NSW have been advocating for Racing Victoria to be kicked out of RA because we ran a six-race limited whip-use series. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

‘We've had Racing NSW refuse to attend meetings unless we agree to be gagged on what we can say to participants and stakeholders. These are the sort of issues that we have been dealing with.

‘It's been an incredibly frustrating three of four years ... that we haven't been able to get RA functioning as well as we would all like. We have been, I think, very respectful of what has been causing that to date.

‘We haven't been talking about that publicly. We will be talking more and more publicly about them now they have commenced this legal action and give everybody a view as to why things haven't progressed.

‘I can't speak to Racing NSW's motivation, but I can speak to ours ... Anything that we have done has been about trying to make RA functional and make progress in areas like equine welfare and the pattern.

‘Our goal has always been acting in the best interest of racing across this country.’